Journal
Friedrich Kuhlau: The Sonatinas Every Pianist Meets
Friedrich Kuhlau (1786–1832) is met by more piano students than almost any composer of his generation, and most of them never learn anything about him beyond the name at the top of the page. He is the composer of the sonatinas — Op. 20, Op. 55, Op. 88 — that sit in the fourth or fifth year of nearly every piano syllabus in the world.
How he ended up in Denmark
Born near Hanover, Kuhlau lost his right eye in a childhood accident. In 1810 he fled Hamburg to avoid conscription into Napoleon's army and settled in Copenhagen, becoming a Danish citizen in 1813. He spent the rest of his life there as a court musician, a concert pianist and eventually as the composer of what amounts to Denmark's national theatre music.
His late years were miserable in a way that has a bearing on what survives: a fire destroyed his house in 1831 along with a large quantity of unpublished manuscripts, and he died the following year.
The sonatinas, and which set to buy
They are teaching pieces in the best sense — real music, properly constructed, written at a difficulty a student can actually reach, and they do the specific job of introducing classical form without the exposure of Mozart.
| Opus | Contains | Suits |
|---|---|---|
| Op. 20 | Three sonatinas | The usual starting point, around grade 3–4 |
| Op. 55 | Six sonatinas | The best-known set; No. 1 in C is the one everybody plays |
| Op. 88 | Four sonatinas | Longer and more demanding, around grade 5–6 |
Complete editions of all three sets are widely published and cost little more than a single volume, which makes them the sensible purchase. Everything is long out of copyright, so free public-domain scans are entirely legitimate — what a modern edition buys you is fingering, which at this stage of a student's development is worth paying for.
The flute music
Kuhlau wrote so much good flute music that he acquired the nickname "the Beethoven of the flute", which is generous but points at something true: nobody else of his period wrote so much serious music for the instrument. The duets, trios and quartets for flutes alone are a repertoire with almost no competition, and flautists who have exhausted the obvious end up here.
He is said not to have played the flute himself, which makes the idiomatic quality of the writing more impressive rather than less.
Elverhøj
His incidental music to Elverhøj (The Elf Hill, 1828) is the piece Danes know him for. It quotes folk melodies and ends with a setting of the royal anthem, and it is still performed in Denmark on state occasions — a piece of national repertoire written by a German draft-dodger.
A caution when buying: the catalogue holds his name under a dozen spellings, from Friedrich Kuhlau to Daniel Friedrich Rudolph Kuhlau. If a piece you expect is not under one, try another.